Crooked Lines
by clair beaubien
Summary: Dean thinks he figured out why it "always had to be Sam." Set vaguely post 5.10


**A/N: I know I say it a lot but I don't think I could ever say it enough - thank you thank you THANK YOU to everyone who alerts, favorites, recommends, reviews or just plain reads my stories. So many times you find so much more in my stories than I realized was there which is why I also say that my stories are only as good as the people who read them. THANK YOU.**

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Another glorious morning of doing laundry. I'm telling you, after being in hell, dealing with angels, stumbling across the anti-Christ and meeting up with Lucifer, laundry-detail is a little _jejune_, if you know what I mean.

I had the wash detail, so Sam gets the dry detail. The distracted mood he's in, I wouldn't trust him not to accidentally throw something red in with the whites and we'd find ourselves fighting evil wearing pink socks.

Not the macho image I like to present.

Sam's not in the best mood lately. We're giving our all to stop the Apocalypse and we just can't win for losing. And all we've been hearing lately, from whatever supernatural being we get to deal with, is that from the beginning of time or even further back, we've been destined to be part of this fight. That I'm destined to be Michael's vessel, and Sam is destined to be Lucifer's.

To me, that says that somebody is conveniently overlooking the whole "free will" factor, not to mention - no Winchester I ever knew did something just because somebody who _wasn't _a Winchester told them to do it.

Sam though - they tell him he's always been destined to free Lucifer and be his vessel, and all Sammy hears is that he's always been destined to be evil. That maybe he already is evil. Maybe he's always _been _evil. And nothing I say ever changes his mind.

I mean, look at him. He opens the dryer to start putting our clothes in and finds a dollar. Instead of just tucking it into his pocket, he looks around and sees the lady who took her laundry out just the minute before. She's at one of the tables, folding her laundry out of the wheeled cart into her pink plastic laundry basket.

"Excuse me? I think this is yours. It was in the dryer you just used."

He hands it over, she thanks him, and he goes back to put our clothes in and start up the dryer. On his way over to where I'm sitting in the fixed chairs near the front door, he picks a stray sock - not one of ours - from the floor and sets it on the nearest washing machine. He holds the front door for an older lady who's on her way out of the Laundromat, and then - "_Can I get that for you?_" - goes out to open her car door for her too.

Yeah, he's evil incarnate all right.

Why? Why is it supposed to be Sam from all time? Why is the kid who wouldn't keep a penny too much in change the one who's supposed to agree to be the new face of evil?

How can he be the one who's supposed to say 'yes' to Lucifer?

There's been plenty of times I wish Pastor Jim was here to help explain everything. I remember when we were young, staying with Pastor Jim, all the nights of listening to Dad argue faith and reason with him.

Dad didn't think much of anything - malignant or benign - that didn't visibly stand and fight. Pastor Jim had room for nuances. Dad believed the world was overwhelmed by random evil and accidental goodness. Pastor Jim believed the world turned by God's hand and that there was no true coincidences.

Until the past couple of years, I was with Dad - bad things happen wherever and whenever it wants, and good things happen only when people get off their asses and kick back.

The past year though, I've had a crash course in heaven and hell running interference in our lives. To me, it still seems a lot like bad things happening whenever they want, but with a face or two behind it directing it all.

Sam sets himself down in the hard plastic chair next to me. I'm picking through a magazine not even from this millennium, but Sam doesn't pick anything up. He just sits there. Thinking. Always thinking.

And generally not happy thoughts.

I generally don't spend much time dwelling on things that have happened to us and why. There's never any time to stop and enjoy the good things, and there's sure never any time to brood over the bad things.

Lots of bad things had been happening to us lately, but how many good things? Two? If that?

The best thing that happened in all this mess is that Sam didn't die. That goes without saying, or thinking, or cogitating or anything. Sam is alive. We can deal with everything else.

Getting drop-kicked out of that convent at T-minus-nothing was a good thing too. That couldn't have been a coincidence. I don't want to dwell on who might've booted us out of there, but Castiel seems to think it was God Himself.

The one main reason I don't want to buy that is because it would have to mean that God is paying attention, and that He cares. And I am still having a hard time, a _really hard time_, believing that.

Sam shifts next to me, stretching his legs out and pulling them back, pushing his hands into his jacket pockets.

"You want some coffee from next door?" I ask him. The Laundromat is next to a Tim Horton's. Sam shakes his head.

"I'll go get you something if you want." He offers.

"Nah."

"No, really. You want a bagel or something with that?" He stands up and doesn't wait for my answer and leaves the Laundromat.

God did all right saving Sam if He's the one who put us on that plane. He gets points from me for that. But - why would God save the man who's supposed to cave to evil?

Pastor Jim might have an answer for that. What'd he say? '_God writes straight with crooked lines.'_

What does _that_ mean?

I'm still pondering that when Sam comes back with my coffee and bagel, and the same for himself. I don't point out his previous refusal to him. We sit and eat and drink, and after another forty-five minutes of dryer-time, we're packed up and in the car heading back to the motel.

When we get there, Sam digs a clean shirt out of the duffel and our such-as-it-is sewing kit from his backpack and sits down at the table.

"What're you doing?"

"This shirt's missing a couple of buttons."

"We'll get you a new one."

He shrugs.

"I like this shirt."

He'd rather sew on a couple of mismatched buttons than spend even a little money on a fake credit card.

It's then that it hits me.

Writing straight - _fixing the Apocalypse_ - with crooked lines - _by putting it in the hands of the one person most likely to say no to the devil._

"Sam?""Hmm?" He doesn't look up at me, he's trying to thread some thread into his needle.

"I think I figured it out."

"Yeah?"

"Why it has to be you."

"Why?" He knows without asking what I'm talking about. He sets his work down and gives me that look like he trusts me completely to have the answer. "Why does it have to be _me_?"

"Because you won't say 'yes' to evil."

I expect a fast, emphatic, '_that's right, I won't_'. But he shakes his head.

"You can't be sure of that."

"Yes, I can. I can be sure of that because you never _have _said 'yes' to evil." I tell him. "What did Pastor Jim used to say all the time?"

"'_That's your sleeve, not a handkerchief.'_"

And people think _I_ can be sarcastic.

"The _other_ thing he used to say all the time… '_saying 'no' to God is saying 'yes' to evil.'_ Remember?"

"Yeah - but - I've said '_no'_ plenty of times." Sam picks up the needle and tries threading it again.

"_When?"_ I ask him. "When have you known what God was asking of you and you said 'no'? C'mon, Sam. Be honest. When have you ever knowingly said 'no' to God?"

"Plenty of times." He mutters down to his hands.

"When? I know you, Sammy. The few times you've had to take a car, you fill the gas tank before you leave it to be found. You don't use a fake credit card when you have enough money otherwise. When we were apart those couple of weeks, you got a job to pay for your motel room and your food. Didn't you? You won't take a nickel when you're owed a penny. You won't give a penny when you can give a nickel. You remember the name of every woman you ever slept with, and I know you would give your life to save any person on this planet."

Ever impatient with the telling of his good points, Sam snaps at me,

"What's your point, Dean?"

"My point, Sam -." I push his hands down so he'll pay attention to me. " - is that I think maybe God -."

I stop. I mean, as much as I want it to be true for Sammy's sake, it still sounds kind of crazy.

"Maybe God what?"

"Maybe - maybe God set this whole thing up. Maybe He always knew this showdown was coming. Maybe it really always had to be you because God set it up that way because you're the one guy He knew He could trust."

Sam doesn't answer. So I keep talking.

"If God is all that He's supposed to be, how can He _not_ know that you would walk barefoot through fire over broken glass if you even _thought_ it was the right thing to do."

He sighs, or maybe it's more of a huff. He pulls his hands free of mine and asks,

"Do you really think so?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense."

"Yeah, and so much of our lives up 'til now has made sense."

"Look - all I'm saying is - maybe it always had to be you, maybe it always had to be _us_, not because we fight, not because we'll give in, and sure not because you're evil. But because we're the only ones who can get the job done, and God knows it. Okay?"

"Ask me again when this is all over."

I want to smack him on the back of the head. Instead I take the needle from him and thread it for him and hand it back. I'm out of sense and logic. Maybe though I put enough of a seed in his mind that when he sits and thinks, he'll think over what I said.

He starts in on his buttons and I fire up my laptop.

"_Thanks._" He says after awhile.

"You're welcome."

The End.


End file.
